Less Is More

Sometimes a small group of carefully selected images can have more impact than a high-volume show. Consider, for example, Today’s Warrior-Artists, an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts of half a dozen pieces by contemporary Plains Indians artists and a few historic works, occupying a small corridor near the Native American room.

The exhibit features the work of three contemporary Plains artists, Francis Yellow, Martin Red Bear, and Robe Walker, who have adapted traditional forms to contemporary subject matter in a way that evokes reflection on the questions of culture and history.

Yellow’s Anthropology: We’re Not Your Indians Anymore offers ample fodder. Instead of an animal hide, his canvas is a computer printout of tribal names—both the names tribes call themselves and the corresponding common misnomers. Colorful pictographs of mounted warriors riding across the paper echo a traditional  party of warriors, but academics replace the bison.

The thread connecting Plains warrior culture and modern war comes through vividly in Red Bear’s Akicita Wasté (Good Soldier), which combines symbols of the Plains Indians’ warrior tradition—pictographs, buffalo, bald eagles, bears—with visual representations of the artist’s experience as a Vietnam War veteran—a faceless soldier, an American flag, military insignia.

“The works of these three Plains artists illustrate how style and inspiration can be drawn from work created several generations ago,” says curator Joseph Horse Capture. Put them in the same room with One Bull’s Custer’s War, and the relationship between Plains warrior culture then and now is clear. The story continues. Through August 12. 2400 3rd Ave. S., Mpls., 612-870-3131.

Reach Stephanie Xenos at stephaniexenos@yahoo.com.